


Falling, with style

by Jadesfire



Category: The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-06-03
Updated: 2014-06-03
Packaged: 2018-02-03 06:51:57
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,536
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1735217
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Jadesfire/pseuds/Jadesfire
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>In which Natasha learns that sometimes, you just have to make a leap of faith. Normally, that's more of a metaphor.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Falling, with style

**Author's Note:**

> For Sholio, for a prompt at AvengersGen (Full prompt in notes at end of story).

The roar made Steve hesitate, then frown as the goon he'd been trying to put down got in a lucky punch. Glaring, Steve hit him hard enough that the man went instantly limp, falling to the gravel of the roof with a satisfying crunch. That was the last of his attackers, and Steve turned, looking for Natasha. She was finishing with her own group just as another earth-rumbling shout reached them and Steve saw her normally rock-steady hand waver a little, her gun dipping for just a fraction of a second. 

Then he was sure he must have imagined it, because she was bringing the last of her opponents down with a kick that sent him sprawling into the low wall around the roof with a sickening crack. 

Steve stepped over the man as he joined her."Glad he's on our side," he said as somewhere in the distance, Hulk roared again. It was hard not to to notice the way Natasha's fingers gripped the wall, her knuckles white.

"On our side and a long way away," she said, and there it was again, that sense of something unsaid that Steve could hear in her voice. When she turned to him, her smile was as fleeting as her hesitation had been, a flash of a mask that she wasn't quite succeeding at getting back in place. She turned away before Steve could say anything, waving her hand at the opposite building.

"You ever throw the hammer?" she asked, and the non-sequitur was so abrupt that Steve just blinked for a moment. It was only when he followed her gaze that he caught her meaning.

"Not professionally," he said, estimating distances. "I could jump it. Assuming I didn't get a bullet to the face halfway across." There was enough movement on the rooftop to suggest serious opposition.

"Now that just means I've got to go," Natasha said. "America would never forgive me if I let anything happen to that pretty face." She backed up a few steps, clearly making her own calculations. "And if anything happens with that thing downstairs, you're much more likely to survive it than I am."

Since there wasn't much point arguing with her when she was right, Steve sighed and clipped his shield to his back. It would make a good counterweight.

Natasha shook her head when he reached for her wrist, turning instead so she had her back to him. 

"I'm going to have enough to deal with without a dislocated shoulder." 

She crossed her hands across her chest, and when Steve lifted her off her feet, his hands tight under her arms, she locked her legs together, body taut.

"Remind me to incorporate this into our training regime," he said, feeling as much as hearing her huff of laughter. Then he was turning, building momentum as he spun, leaning back a little and waiting for the right moment. They were almost at the wall when he threw her, putting all his strength into it and trying to angle upwards a little to make sure she'd have the height she needed. It was a long way across, giving him plenty of time to get his balance back and watch.

A few meters out, Natasha twisted, turning so that she looked more like she was flying than being flung, her arms outstretched and body still in that same tight line. Just before she reached the other roof, she tucked her head down, rolling into a somersault that would let her land feet-first, her hands going to her sides. A few seconds after she disappeared behind the wall, Steve heard the distinctive sound of her pistols firing.

_"You know, Tasha, if you want to fly, you should ask Stark to make you a suit. Though I'll admit, that was definitely falling with style."_ There was something close to relief in Barton's voice, and Steve grinned, catching the reference as Barton must have known he would.

_"When you lot are all done chatting, some of us are doing actual work here."_ The words were no more irritable than usual, but Steve could hear the strain in Stark's tone, and the crash of falling masonry both over the comm and from the building below him. _"Am I the only one who's remembered there's a bomb somewhere in this building? Because last time I checked, only one of us is actually completely bomb-proof, and he's out bowling with armoured troop carriers."_

Steve put a hand to his ear. "On my way, Stark. ETA two minutes depending what resistance I meet." He turned and pulled the shield back onto his arm, setting off for the door down into the building as the sound of Natasha's gunshots drifted over from the opposite building.

* * *

It took Steve five minutes to work his way down the building, and that was only because someone had the sense to shut one of the security doors, and it took him forty-five seconds to prise it open. Apart from some lab techs with guns, there didn't seem to be anyone around, and most of those ran before he could even throw his shield after them. The security details must have rushed to the roof when the chopper had dropped him and Natasha, trying to cut the Avengers off before they could get this far. That hadn't been a great tactical plan.

He met Stark in the twentieth floor stairwell, just as he was putting his shoulder to the door. Together, they forced it open and stumbled inside.

"Came up from the ground, although I had to make a new door," Stark said as he flipped up the suit's visor. 

"So I see." Steve brushed rubble off Stark's shoulder and raised an eyebrow. They grinned at each other for a moment, then turned to look at the other occupant of the room.

"Hello, nasty." Obviously sensing Steve's frown, Stark waved a hand. "Google it, I'm going to be busy. Jarvis, retract gauntlets." He was already moving away, heading for the metal and wire structure that stood at the center of the room. There was a faint glow at its heart, something gleaming and unearthly, which confirmed SHIELD's intel and at least reassured Steve that the Avengers hadn't been called out unnecessarily.

He did a sweep of the room, making sure there weren't going to be any suprises lurking in dark corners, and was about to check in with the others when there was the unmistakable boom of an explosion, the building rocking beneath his feet. Stark cursed. 

"Right, because this wasn't hard enough already." He was up to his elbows in the device, obviously struggling to keep himself and it upright as everything shook with the force of the blast. 

"It's not in here," Steve said, staggering over to the window and watching as glass and concrete dust tumbled into the space between the two buildings, a huge girder already sticking out the side of the building opposite. He'd actually taken a breath to speak, but Barton got there first.

_"Tasha!"_

If he craned his neck, Steve could just see the black smudge of Natasha's jumpsuit as she leant over the wall surrounding the roof. Three floors of the building looked to have been blown out, clearly chosen to make sure the whole building would come down with them. The roof looked to be intact for now, but gravity was already starting to do its work.

Natasha disappeared behind the wall as the building lurched, two floors collapsing. 

_"I'm going to get to cover,"_ she said over the radio, her voice raised to be heard over the rumble of the disaster zone beneath her feet, but without any panic in it.

_"Where?"_

_"I'm open to suggestions."_

Steve looked over his shoulder. Stark was the only one who could fly over there, but even if he could extract himself from the bomb safely at this point, there was no way he'd get the rest of the suit on in time. Rejecting the option, Steve hefted his shield and eyed the window. It didn't look that strong.

_"Jump."_

That was what Steve himself had been about to say, already bracing himself for crashing through the window. Something in the way Barton said it caught his attention, though, and he pressed up close to the glass again instead, trying to get a better look at what was going on out there.

_"What?"_

_"Your eleven o'clock, coming in fast. Jump."_

Leaning over, Steve saw it too, what Barton from his vantage point must have caught sight of a second earlier.

_"Clint..."_ There was a crash of something over the comm, and Natasha gave a clipped shout that turned into a curse.

Steve had had enough. "You heard the man, Romanov. Jump." He didn't often put that kind of force into his words with the Avengers; he didn't need to. But if she hesitated now - and for all the wrong reasons - she wasn't going to make it.

There was silence for a moment, then the sound of a deeply drawn breath. A second later, Steve saw her, moving fast towards the edge of the roof. The building was going into freefall below her now, the roof tilting at a crazy angle and for a horrible second, it looked like they'd been too late after all.

Then she was jumping, one foot connecting with the wall to give her an extra boost as she launched herself upwards. Her arms spread out as she rose, her body in a perfect curve as though she was cliff diving, and Steve's breath caught in his throat. There was still time, if he went now. He could still catch her.

He didn't need to. 

There was a roar audible even over the collapsing building and something huge, green and moving too fast to see intercepted Natasha almost before she'd started to fall. The two of them flashed past the window, disappearing out of sight around the corner again. Steve winced, because that still must have hurt, albeit a lot less than being crushed by falling masonry. 

Speaking of which, he turned his attention back just in time to see the last intact floor crumple and the whole building fall in on itself. Huge shards of glass tumbled over lumps of concrete bigger than Steve, everything jumbling together into a great mess of dust and rubble.

_"They're down,"_ Barton said over the radio and Steve let himself breathe again. Leaning one hand against the window, he dropped his head for a moment, relishing the relief. _"And that's the last of the bad guys too."_

Steve nodded. "Good work, Hawkeye. Romanov?"

_"I'm here."_ Her voice was a low rasp, hoarse as though she was struggling to get the words out.

"Good to hear you," Steve said firmly, not giving her room to doubt right now. "Tell Hulk it's over, he can stand down."

There was a long silence. 

Steve let it drag on for close to a minute before saying again, "Romanov, do you copy? Tell Hulk to stand down."

_"I..._ Natasha choked on whatever she'd been going to say, and Steve could almost hear her trying to get a grip on herself. It wasn't entirely working, because when she did speak, it was in barely a whisper. _"How?"_

"Just tell him." This time, Steve made it softer. "He'll understand."

There was another pause, and for a moment, Steve though she was going to refuse, or maybe just not be able to say it all. 

_"Cap says,"_ he heard, and that didn't sound like Natasha at all. He gripped the edge of his shield as Hulk roared, loud over the radio.

_"Cap says to stand down,"_ Natasha shouted, with the edge of panic that had been missing when she'd been standing on top of a crumbling building. _"It's over, Bruce. Stand down!"_

_"Atta girl,"_ Barton murmured. _"He's moving away, Cap. Probably going to find somewhere nice and quiet to change back._

_"Confirmed,"_ Natasha said, sounding shaken but more like herself. _"And if you ever 'atta girl' me again, Clint-"_

Steve missed the rest of the threat, turning and ducking automatically as there was a crash from behind him, this time of metal pieces falling against each other. When he lifted his head, Stark was holding up the glowing core from the bomb, his expression triumphant.

"Gotcha," he said, grinning at Steve and showing off his prize. Apparently realising that he was missing something, his expression shifted into something closer to a frown. "What? What did I miss?"

He was still asking as Steve began to laugh.

* * *

As soon as they were at cruising altitude, Natasha slipped off the seat onto the deck of the quinjet, stretching out her leg with a groan. 

"Bruised?"

"Better than dead." She turned to smile up at Steve, then winced and adjusted the ice pack on her shoulder. As she fussed with it, she glanced into the back of the jet where Stark was muttering to himself as he examined the alien core. Across from him, Bruce was stretched out on the bench seat, where he'd fallen asleep before they'd even taken off. "I didn't really get a chance to say thank you."

"I thought you-"

"Not to Bruce. To..." She hesitated. "To the other guy."

"I'm sure he got the message." That sounded a lot more confident than Steve felt. For all that he more or less trusted the Hulk in a fight, there was still far too much they didn't know, and Banner wasn't ready to share. He went on, "And if you thanked Bruce, you thanked him."

"Maybe." She shrugged, hissing under her breath as it jolted her sore shoulder. "Either way, I should thank him. The next time I see him."

"The next time?"

That got him one of Natasha's _seriously?_ looks, but there was humour in it. "There's always a next time, isn't there?" she said.

Steve considered. "Does that mean we're putting 'throwing teammates across chasms' and 'jumping off tall buildings' on the training plan? Because I don't think we have a protocol for that yet."

He heard something that might have been a laugh, almost too soft to hear at all, then she was moving, reaching up with her good hand, and planting it on Steve's knee to push herself to her feet. He just about managed not to yelp as her fingers - and it couldn't be by accident, not from Natasha - dug into a nerve. Massaging the feeling back into his calf, he watched her limp to the back of the jet, apparently as oblivious to Stark as he was to her, and carefully lift Bruce's hand to rest on his chest again. 

Then she lowered herself back down onto the decking, pressed the ice pack to her hip this time, tipped her head back and closed her eyes. 

"She'll be alright."

Steve turned to see Barton watching over his shoulder from the pilot's seat. He'd spoken low enough that probably only Steve had heard him over the whine of the engines, and when he met Steve's eye, he smiled, just a little, before turning back to his instruments.

"Yes," Steve said, smiling himself, although not for Barton's benefit. "Yes, I think she will."

**Author's Note:**

> Original prompt:
> 
> _Okay, so this was inspired by a bit of meta I ran across on Tumblr, talking about how Bruce actually seems to have some self-control when he's Hulk, and to remember things that happened to him before -- in the final fight in Avengers, he's attacking the bad guys (not the good guys), worries about Tony, and remembers enough about his previous interactions with Thor to hold a bit of a grudge._
> 
> _But on the Helicarrier, when he found himself in a strange place with people he didn't know and explosions everywhere, he was seriously trying to kill Natasha (et al), and she was (legitimately) terrified of him._
> 
> _So I'd love to see something about Natasha and Hulk in the field, post-Avengers movie, now that they've gotten used to each other enough to have some level of, if not trust, then at least confidence that they'll be more dangerous to the bad guys than to each other. Specifically, I guess I'm looking for Natasha's reactions to being out in the field with Hulk now that he's on her side, but wondering if she can really turn her back on him. Maybe he even feels a little bad about trying to kill her and goes out of his way to keep her from being attacked; Natasha discovering that Hulk is now protective of her, instead of trying to hurt her, would be sweet. <3_
> 
> _(I don't mind if Bruce-as-Bruce is in the fic; it's just mostly Natasha and Hulk that I'm thinking about.)_


End file.
